FRIDAY NIGHT FAIRY CAKE FEELING

Recipe of the week...
Lemon fairy cakes

Ingredients: 110g butter or marg, 110g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 110g self-raising flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 lemons, ½ a jar lemon curd, 36 lemon jelly slices (for decoration).

Time taken: Half an hour to make and 20 mins to bake. Then a while cooling and half an hour to decorate. So, a couple of hours total.

Hi readers,

Fridayyyyyyyy!!! It’s official.. we’ve made it to the end of the week. HOO-RAY! Can you even remember the start of the week?? I don’t know if I can it seems like so long ago. This week has been looong. Long. Long, and is it just me or has it been a hard one? Like, more difficult than normal. No, it definitely has. It’s been tough.

For me: There was the dentist, not pleasant. I won’t detail. Then there was Valentine’s Day as a single gal, facing the onslaught. Romantic bliss rammed down everyone’s throats via every imaginable form of social media. And, there was work. With many colleagues and clients away skiing over the school holidays! Enjoying the French Alps and leaving the rest of us to chaos. What a week.

How about you – what do you think?? How’s the week been for you, lovely readers? I bet it’s been one hell of a week, one way or another! And, if it hasn’t been one hell of a week, then what are you waiting for?! It’s Friday.. cue the champagne!

 I love the feeling on a Friday evening when you walk out of work. Like: cool shades on and fireworks lighting up the sky, then office explodes in the background as you drive away. That doesn’t happen but this exactly how it feels for me, when I walk out on a Friday. Like… YASS.

One night of irresponsible drinking and reckless behaviour, in my pyjamas on the settee no doubt, and then it’s on with the weekend. And two days of goodness knows what! I love the feeling on a Friday that just anything could lie ahead. There’s wonderful potential in the unknown.

Basically: I’m feeling pumped up for Friday night and the weekend ahead, readers, and I hope you are, too. I hope you're excited and happy and – to quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower (an excellent film, which I watched last night) – you feel infinite.

You’re not feeling like you could jump out of your skin you’re so excited for Friday night?? Well, readers, that just isn’t good enough. Feed your minds and embrace the potential that the weekend holds.

You need a powerful film to watch – with characters that will have you engrossed and a plot to steer your mind away from work stuff? I say, watch The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

You’re looking for an insightful page-turner to sink your teeth into – a new book to read that contains fresh perspective and food for thought? I say, Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon.

Go read this book, I insist

You’re on the hunt for a fact or a figure or a quote (to save as your phone’s wallpaper or write in the front page of your work notebook, perhaps) – one that will inspire you to think outside the box or dream bigger? I say, how about…

“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life”

- Jessica Hische (taken from Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon).  

… that’s been inspiring me through the week! Maybe it’s the ChefBeHere blog?? And I’ll still be here sharing recipes in eighty years’ time!

With a boyfriend by then

Who knows. But I’m definitely here today and certainly do have a fabtastic recipe to share, readers! Don’t doubt it! So. My recipe of the week, this week, is one that I hope will inspire you to look ahead to Spring, readers, and one that I hope will get you baking – because it’s been ages since I shared a recipe for a bake. Far too long.. goodness!

This week, my Father Bear was another year wiser. And so we had a bit of a fuss for him and went out for a birthday tea. We went heavy on a whisky theme for his gifts and, for the occasion, I got my bake on! Had to dust off my baking box when I got it down from the cupboard for this first bake of the year.

How have I not baked in six weeks?

And then none of my ingredients were all that inspiring! They were too Christmassy. So I braved the sleet and made it to the shop for some new baking kit.. and found, readers, that (in Asda, at least).. Spring has sprung! Daffodils and Easter eggs and hot cross buns and, even if it’s freezing outside, some small signs that Spring could be around the corner.

So. I put all my eggs in one basket and went for a Spring theme. Lemon was my flavour of choice – as it’s fruity and yellow – and I decided to adapt a basic fairy cake recipe to give it a citrus twist. And this went really well! I had fun in the kitchen, baking away and watching the miserable weather outdoors, and then the fairy cakes were met with rave reviews both at work and at my Father Bear’s birthday bash. Result.

Do you have a special occasion coming up? Someone’s birthday, maybe, or you’re hosting a dinner party for friends?? These fairy cakes could be a lovely addition to any celebration! And even if you don’t have a reason for a party, really, there’s always cause for baking one way or another! Why not bake up a batch of fairy cakes and invite friends over for a cuppa and cake at the weekend? Or surprise your colleagues at work with a cakey treat?

If any have some time to spare for a spring-inspired recipe, for some citrusy little cakes (that aren’t too big and so aren’t really naughty!), then I think you should definitely roll up your sleeves and give lemon fairy cakes a go. Ready to get your bake on?? Here’s how to magic up a batch of tasty buns in just 15 simple steps…

1.     Stick the kettle on, brew a cuppa, and get all your ingredients and baking kit out.

2.     Heat the oven to 180C and line a 12-hole fairy cake tin with paper bun cases.

3.     Grate the zest of your lemons into a bowl.

4.     Measure your butter and sugar into a large mixing bowl, and use a wooden spoon to cream them together until you have a smooth, pale paste.

5.     Crack your eggs into a mug and use a fork to whisk them up a bit, then cut your lemons in half and squeeze the juice of lemons into the mug.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: Look out for any lemon pips falling into the mug! If they do, be sure to fish them back out again.

6.     Tip your eggy mix into the big mixing bowl, and spoon in your lemon zest. Give everything a good stir together.

7.     Measure out your flour and add 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

8.     Sieve your dry ingredients into the main mixing bowl, so that they lightly coat the contents, and then use your wooden spoon to gently fold all the cake mix together.

9.     Once the mix is quite smooth, with no major lumps, spoon it out evenly between the bun cases until they’re half full.

10.  Carefully transport into the oven to bake for 10-20 minutes, until they’re golden brown on top.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: The bake time is quite vague here as it depends greatly on the oven you’re using. I would advise checking on your buns after ten minutes to see if they’re done; if they are then you can take them out, and if they aren’t then this is the perfect time to swizzle your bun tin around to face the other way. Then, keep checking every five minutes after that. Fairy cakes are only small so they can quickly go from baked to burnt! We don’t want that so keep a good eye on them.

11.  Once your buns are nicely browned, safely take them out of the oven and turn the oven off. Leave your buns on the side, to cool for half an hour, and in the meanwhile you can get your dishes done and clean up the mess in the kitchen!

12.  Come back to your buns once you’re ready to decorate. For this you will need a sharp knife, a jar of lemon curd and a teaspoon, and some lemon jelly slices for decoration.

13.  For each bun, take it out of the bun tin and sit it on a square of kitchen towel. Use your sharp knife to carefully cut a circle out of its top. Take the top of the bun off and cut this circle of cake in half (to make your two fairy wings).

14.  Then spoon a dollop of lemon curd into the hole you’ve just made in your bun, and arrange your two cake wings, pressing them into the lemon curd so that they point upwards as though your fairy cake were flying.

15.  Finally, take a few lemon jelly slices and press these into the lemon curd in a row running between the two wings, like the body of a butterfly. Repeat this for each of the fairy cakes, and try not to eat all the lemon curd and jelly slices in the process!

And that, readers, is all there is to it. Not too difficult is it! Maybe don’t attempt this bake while drunk – there is some skill required during the decoration stage when you’re slicing the heads off your fairy cakes (although on BBC Good Food it does claim “this easy peasy recipe is perfect for baking with children”… ha!) – but as long as you’re relatively sober and have the right ingredients, and enough time, then I reckon you should be fine.

Even my Brother Bear and his Lady Bear could do well with this bake! And they are not bakers, readers, they really aren’t. Do let me know! Let me know how you get along with this recipe, if you give it a go. I hope it works out well for you and you have some lovely fairy cakes to share with your colleagues or loved ones.

Have a fun Friday night, feeling infinite, and a fantastic weekend.

Friday safely readers,

Hayley

Get your bake on, readers!
Such pretty cakes to bake

A BAKING BLEND

Carrot Cake Tea Loaf

Time Taken: An hour & 20 mins (including the bake)

Ingredients: 230g caster sugar, 280g plain flour, 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder, a big shake of cinnamon, ½ a teaspoon of salt, 120g butter, 100ml milk, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 230g carrots (that’s about 3 carrots), & 180g chopped walnuts or sultanas.

Hi readers,

So… Monday is done. Readers, you’ve done it again. You have officially made it to the end of the day! A Monday! Three cheers to EVERYONE for your wonderful efforts today, battling against the evil forces of Monday. You. Heroes.

So, has it been a day to remember? At all? If you think about today, and then think about what you might come to remember this day for in the future, what do you think it will be? Will today be remembered? Readers, I hope you’ll be remembering today for all the right reasons, and not for any of the wrong ones. I hope that today’s been a Thumbs Up kind of day.

MY DAY I think I’ll remember for being the day I took a National Express coach instead of a Megabus. This, readers, was a Really Big Deal for me. So big! Basically, due to the incredibly and unbelievably cheap prices of Megabuses, I’m allllllways taking them to get between Newcastle (uni home) and Sheffield (home home). Rarely do I spend more than a tenner on a Megabus which is WAY lower than the trains cost. And if you’re the first person to book onto the bus then you get your journey for the princely sum of one quid (!!!) which was me this December when I journeyed home for Xmas Break.

BUT Megabuses are the worst. You spend ages waiting for them on the pavement and never know when one will arrive. Often, Megabus drivers and marshals are really rude to you. They squash loads of people onto a bus and you never have any legroom. It’s stuffy. Too hot or too cold. The plugs don’t work. The Wi-Fi doesn’t work. The toilet is terrible. A baby is crying. Someone opens a pack of sushi and the smell hits you. And you have hours of survival ahead!

So, for today’s trip, I did my research and found that I could get a National Express coach instead, for only £1 more! Readers, I didn’t look back! So, at 9am my coach set off from Sheffield. The driver was a chatty fellow and he was very concerned with getting his passengers belted up. Safety first. Today, there were only a few people on the coach including me and we each had decent space for legroom. Along with window seats. And no need to sit anywhere near to each other on the bus! Result!

We spent an hour driving to Leeds and then took an hour’s break. I stretched my legs and grabbed a coffee. Back on the bus at 11 and we headed north. After that, it took just over 3 hours and we were rolling into Newcastle. Such an enjoyable trip! The sun was shining through the windows warming everyone up and we got to see the sights of lots of lovely towns along the way to Newcastle. Today, I’ve been through Harrogate and Darlington and Durham… and who knows where else!

When I wasn’t watching the world go by I was having a read at my book ‘In The Darkness’ by Karin Fossum. A proper Norwegian crime thriller! A book which I’ve now gone and finished. And all was good. Today, the journey up to Newcastle has been good. I give National Express a cheerful ten out of ten for today’s trip. It was fun! And so, if I remember today, I think it will be as the day that I finally escaped the Megabus.

OR as the day that they arrested the murderer of Claudia Lawrence. Which I think is the best news ever! Hopefully, this means that the case can be solved and there will be justice at last for Claudia’s family. And perhaps the discovery of her body. So that her family can say good bye and Claudia can rest in peace, as everyone should.

So, readers, you’ve survived Monday. Hopefully you’ll be remembering today for good reasons. And the whole rest of the week lies ahead for you! What will you do with your week?? How will you spend your time? MAYBE you’ll have time for some Spring baking?? I hope you do because I have just the recipe! For a lovely Carrot Cake Tea Loaf. :) This I baked on Friday evening before I headed home to Sheffield,  as a treat for my Father Bear! And a sly way, readers, to get him eating vegetables.

Have you tried carrot cake before? Or  tea loaf, readers?? Whether you have or you haven’t, all you need to know is that this recipe takes the best of both of those cakes MASHES THEM TOGETHER and creates something wonderful for you to bake.

So as you may know, readers, carrot cake is traditionally made with chopped walnuts, in the same way that coffee cake is. Butttt, instead, this recipe uses sultanas. Now, putting sultanas in coffee cake in place of walnuts, definitely seems a weird idea. And maybe putting sultanas in carrot cake seems a weird idea, too? Like, when I set about baking this cake and discovered that I didn’t have any walnuts in to use, I was fairly unsure about subbing nuts for sultanas. And when he sliced this cake this weekend and discovered the sultanas hidden inside, my Father Bear was keen to point out that (for him) sultanas seemed out of place.

BUT the online recipe I was using said that this was an ok thing to do (Click HERE to see the original). And, having eaten a big wedge of this cake, I definitely feel that sultanas work ok. More than ok! ALSO… I was in Caffe Nero this weekend and saw that they sell this very cake. The same one. So, there you have it, this cake ISN’T a weird throwing together of things… it’s a real deal recipe. Which you have to try.

Upon my dad’s recommendation, I’m going to call this recipe a Carrot Cake Tea Loaf JUST SO THAT PEOPLE KNOW this isn’t an original Carrot Cake recipe that they’re signing themselves up for. Nor is it a traditional Tea Loaf. It’s a blend. Zero confusion.

Here’s how you can rustle up your very own Tea Loaf of Carrot Cake, in just ten easy steps…

1. Heat your oven to 190˚C.

2. Measure your butter into a small pan and melt it, then set aside for now.

3. Finely grate your carrots.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I won’t lie… grating this amount of carrot is bloody hard graft. Your arm will PROBABLY feel like it’s dropping off. And it probably won’t, but this isn’t going to be a fun ten minutes of your life. I recommend regularly switching the arm that you hold the grater with. And distracting yourself with the radio! And not giving in.

4. Measure your sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl. Stir it up!

5. Add your milk, vanilla extract and melted butter to the bowl. Stir everything together until you have a smooth cake mix.

6. Add your grated carrot to the bowl, along with the sultanas/walnuts. Stir it up!

7. Grease either a deep cake tin or a large loaf tin with butter.

8. Spoon your mix into the tin and safely transport this into the oven to bake for 50 minutes.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: My cake seemed to bake very quickly on top but was still wobbly within, so I covered my cake with foil in the oven and this way the middle could finish baking without the top burning! You may need to do this if your oven is anything like mine.

9. Do your dishes and dance around. Then, when your cake is risen and golden brown (and when a knife jabbed into its centre comes out clean) remove your cake from the oven and leave to cool for ten minutes in its tin.

10. Run a knife around the edge of your cake to loosen it from the tin, and then transfer your cake onto a wire cooling rack. Either slice your cake now and eat warm or leave to cool fully on the rack.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: If you decide to leave your cake to cool, you then have the option to decorate it! While I have zero patience for such pursuits, I know that some people beautifully decorate their carrot cakes with cream cheese frostings and chopped walnuts. Maybe you could even ice a carrot design on the top of your cake? Be creative!

Here’s my beautiful tea loaf of carrot cake…

And, readers, this cake tasted SO MOIST. Like, incredibly so. The moistest cake ever, and then some. SO MOIST. I feel like if you left this cake on your plate for a while (though I don’t know why ANYONE would do this) there’s a strong chance it might melt. So. So. Moist.

Gah. And, for me, the moistness was a really good thing. This cake tasted cinammony and carroty, and it was sticky and sweet. Not even 1% dry. And this cake was fine without any decoration, I felt. This cake wasn’t at a loss without icing. It was fine all by itself! Its very fine self. I like this cake and so does my dad. So will you! Get your Spring bake on this week, readers, and let me know what you think of Carrot Cake Tea Loaf. Go on now.

Travel safely,

Hayley

 

CUPCAKE MISTAKE

Blueberry Cupcakes

Ingredients: 120g plain flour, 140g caster sugar, 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder, a pinch of salt, 100g butter, 120ml milk, 1 egg, a splash of vanilla extract, 300g icing sugar, 100g blueberry cream cheese, 150g blueberries.

Time taken: Probably an hour or so (without disaster management).

Hi readers,

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! To any Irish readers, I hope you’ve had a wonderful day and that you’ve been having a terrific time and wearing an array of oversized green shamrock hats. This is your day! One of the funnest national celebrations around. And here’s wishing that everybody today has had fun celebrating… safely. And that twenty one hours into the day all merrymakers are still able to hold a pint of Guinness with a sort-of steady hand!

Sadly, readers, St. Patrick’s falls this year amidst the big student migration home for Easter break. Bad timing! I’m staying here in Newcastle a little while longer but most folks by now are making the journey down south for a month-long study break. And so there hasn’t been anyone around today for me to raise a Baileys with! What a shame! Me and my Mother Bear will definitely have to correct this the next time I’m home. FO SHO.

But I’ve not had such a bad day, readers. I’ve been super productive sorting summer travel this’s and that’s. Plus, I write to you today HAVING SURVIVED a full weekend at work, which I’m still feeling good about. Mexican wave, everyone! I’m not usually one to complain… but Saturday and Sunday this week were utterly dreadful for me. Serving fast food is never a good job. In fact, it’s a very bad job. The work is tough and you face a constant battle against tiredness and intense boredom. You aren’t paid to be a human being, readers.

But also IN AN AIRPORT there are a disastrously high numbers of customers who don’t speak good English, can’t read the English written on menus and definitely can’t comprehend the mysterious British currency. A lot of customers are stressed and a good few drunk because they have to imminently board a plane. Which is a scary for them.

PLUS a staggering number of the customers are Irish men. And this weekend, slap bang just before St. Patrick’s… the Irish men were appalling. So drunk they didn’t know what to order, how to order, how to pay, what they’d ordered, what I was saying, or where we’d hid from them the FECKING STRAWS. It was a grim two days.

But I did it! More money in the Travel Fund and I live on! So, yesterday, I woke up knowing I didn’t have to get on the Metro to the airport and I was Mrs. SUNSHINE and RAINBOWS and BUTTERFLIES and HAPPINESS.  Literally, a good sleep and the prospect of freedom is the best thing. I woke up in top spirits, readers. Decided to go shopping for a little retail therapy then spent WAY MORE THAN I’D INTENDED TO. But this was ok. Treats are ok.

And Floss had me and our geography friend Alison over for tea and chatter in the evening. A liiiiiiiiiiiiiittle wine was consumed… THE VINO WAS FLOWING. And I spent a very lovely evening with friends. :)  Did I go empty handed over to Floss’s? No I did not! Readers, yesterday afternoon I GOT MY BAKE ON so I’d have something to take along with me later on to give to Floss.

The apron was on! Having formulated a fruity, Springy recipe to try out, I set about getting my bake on in the kitchen. The radio was on with me singing and dancing around the ChefBeHere kitchen… and everything went REALLY disastrously wrong.

Readers, I messed this one up! So, so bad. It was incredibly funny. Also TERRIBLE and I felt very bad for Floss and Alison because they had to eat my baking with smiles on their faces. But I did have a very funny time in the kitchen in the afternoon. Time spent trying to patch up my batch of SERIOUSLY tearaway cupcakes. You really cannot win every bake… no matter how hard you try! And in the end the cupcakes were still terrible but they were presentable. I took them over to the dinner party and inflicted them on my friends, who were very kind and reassuring. But… oh my word.

So, the following things went wrong with my baking:

1. I took a recipe for 12 cupcakes and decided to make 8 ‘big uns’ instead. This was a bad call. My mix rose in the oven and overflowed each muffin case. I had to use a knife to try and chop off the extra cake which had overflowed out of the cases. Never a good start.

2. I mixed blueberries into my cake mix before spooning this into muffin cases. Bad move again. The blueberries sank to the bottom of the cases in the oven, and gave my cupcakes very soggy bottoms.

3. I put too much cream cheese into my frosting and so I couldn’t get it to be firm. The frosting was really quite runny and it went EVERYWHERE. Especially, all over me.

The result was a batch of Blueberry Cupcakes which you could most definitely describe as ‘made with love’. We all have our off days, readers! Sometimes you have to make the most of a bad bake. I used cut-off bits of overflow cupcake as decorative sprinkling, in the end. Being creative. And these cupcakes did taste quite scrumptious. They just look as if a five year old made them.

SO ANYWAYS here I’ve taken the time to write out the recipe for Blueberry Cupcakes as it SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE. I imagine (and really hope) that if you follow these corrected steps you won’t hit disaster like I did. You’ll bake up a storm and will produce a wonderful batch of cupcakes – the ones which I’d imagined in my head, before disaster struck

Here’s how to PROPERLY bake your Blueberry Cupcakes, in just twelve easy steps…

1. Heat your oven to 170˚C.

2. Measure your flour, baking powder, salt and half of your butter into a large mixing bowl.

3. Beat together with a wooden spoon until the mix has a sandy consistency.

4. Then, add half of your milk to the mix. Stir this in so that your sand becomes pebbles.

5. Add your vanilla extract and your egg to the remaining half of your milk, and stir this up!

6. Pour your milky mix into the main bowl and stir your cupcake mix, until everything comes together and the mix is light and smooth.

7. Line a muffin tray with 12 cases (not 8, an entire 12 of them) and spoon your cupcake mix evenly between the cases.

8. Set 36 blueberries to one side. Pop the remaining blueberries into a bowl along with a teaspoon of plain flour. Gently stir your blueberries around in the bowl until they all become coated with flour.

9. Then, spoon a couple of blueberries into each muffin case until all of your floured blueberries are topping cupcake mix. Safely transport your tray of cupcakes into the oven to bake for 20-35 minutes.

10. Once the cupcakes are risen and golden brown (and a knife jabbed into the centre of one comes out with nothing but blueberry juice on it) then remove them from the oven.

11. Leave your cupcakes to cool a while inside the muffin tray.

12. Once your cupcakes are cool, you can make your frosting! This is simple – just add 300g icing sugar, 50g butter and 100g blueberry cream cheese to a bowl (Not 125g like I did. This was too much). And stir it up!

ChefBeHere Top Tip: You’re aiming to make a fairly firm frosting (NOT A RUNNY ONE) so if you need to add more icing sugar to the frosting then do this. Firm it up.

12. Use a knife to neatly top your cupcakes with blueberry frosting and then pop 3 blueberries on top of each cupcake to decorate them!

And that’s all there is to it! So simple that’s it’s more than A LITTLE embarrassing how badly my cupcakes turned out. Really, it was a fail. But oh well! Readers, I want to hear from you, can you make this recipe work?? Because I feel like this could work!! I didn’t make the magic it happen but I’m really sure that one of YOU CAN.

So go, go forth readers, and have a crack at this recipe. I dare you! Blueberry cupcakes (when baked correctly) should be the best thing ever and I had such bloody high hopes for them. I strongly believe that if you take a risk with this corrected recipe, you won’t regret it. Let me know how things go!!!

And risk safely,

Hayley